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disability

I wrote this almost a month ago, but then didn’t have the focus or brain presence to post it. Surgery seems to be like that: I’m recovering well physically, but my energy levels are still pretty erratic and I don’t always manage to focus on tasks as much as I wish I did, sigh… Anyway: have some vintage thoughts from my head!

You know how now and then language bloggers will ask readers what they struggle with in their own learning? What their biggest problems are on the road to fluency? I’ve replied several times to different bloggers with some variant of: mental illness (depression and anxiety) and physical limitations/illness. I have seen, in return, precious little about these issues on any of these blogs. I’m sure they receive hundreds of replies, and it makes sense to focus their response posts on the ones that they think will speak to the most people. And yet it’s kind of infuriating that this stuff rarely gets a mention.

Hello, we’re here. People who are sick in all kinds of ways exist and we learn languages and we deserve attention and advice too. You can’t just apply all your “get up 15 minutes earlier! Just think positive! If you’re not doing it, it’s because you don’t want it enough!” advice to our situations. No, being ill isn’t sexy, it’s not something you can write a super-positive post about, it’s not something your one-size-fits-all advice is going to work for. We’re not cool. We don’t fit into your narrative of winners who just need the right productivity tip to turn everything around; we exist in other ways than just as your inspiration pr0n.

People who are ill or who are disabled exist. Some of them have even achieved the vaunted polyglot status! Others of us might yet! But you know, it’d be nice if some of that language learning community cameraderie recognized us as we are too. Sure, you can sometimes adapt more general advice about making time for study when life is hectic or stressful, but there are also specific things that relate to illness/ability that could be addressed — and recovering from surgery made me very keenly aware of this lack.